RAYMOND, MAINE – The closure of
Dielectric, the U.S. broadcast industry’s largest supplier of transmission
antennas, is raising concerns that it will be virtually impossible to complete
the post-incentive auction channel repack in three years, as Congress has
mandated. Forget the 18-month window proposed by the Federal Communications
Commission, said Gary Cavell of Cavell, Mertz & Associates, broadcast
engineering consultants in Manassas, Va.

“The FCC’s timeline certainly is not going to get met,” he said “They were
one of the go-to companies. There’s going to be a supply-and-demand issue.”

Dielectric’s impending closure was confirmed on Friday, two weeks after the
FCC issued a freeze on full-power and Class A TV station modification
applications. The commission did so in anticipation of the incentive auction,
tentatively scheduled for June of 2014.

By Monday, the phones at Dielectric went directly to voicemail.

“You have reached SPX Communications Technologies, formerly known as Dielectric
Technologies… SPX has announced its decision to close the Dielectric broadcast,
TV, radio and wireless operation in Raymond, Maine, effective June 29, 2013. We
will be unavailable until Thursday, April 25 to answer any inquiries regarding
this process…”

Jay Adrick, a technology advisor to Harris Broadcast, said Dielectric’s closure
was a “grave concern for the industry.”

“I have repeatedly told the commission in my filings as well as the seminar I
did with them last June… and will remind them again, that three years isn’t
going to cut it,” he said. “This further supports that position.”

Around 63 percent of full-power TV stations in the country have Dielectric
antennas, according to a search of the FCC’s broadcast database system by
Cavell Mertz’s Michael D. Rhodes. The next-largest provider has a 20 percent
market share. All other manufacturers combined comprise the remaining 17
percent.

Sinclair’s Mark Aitken said his group had five projects under way that are “now
dead.”

“The FCC freeze came as a total surprise for many, and has had a chilling
effect on many critical broadcast industry providers,” said Aitken, Sinclair’s
vice president of advanced technology. “ This ‘guillotine’ approach at
break-neck speed to complete the most complex spectrum auction ever devised is
having the unintended consequence of ‘shutting down’ entire parts of the
industry that will be required in any repack scenario. The loss of crucial
providers spells delay in any repack scenario.”

In addition to antennas, Dielectric was the major supplier of TV transmission
line, mask filters, combiners and other related equipment. Each TV station
requires a customized antenna package based on frequency, coverage area, power
and tower configuration. All replacements and upgrades require an engineering
study to make sure the work plan meets federal regulations, structural
standards and technical requirements. Dielectric also conducted those studies.

“There’s not an inventory just lying there,” Cavell said. “Even if Dielectric
were still in business, you would still have to ramp up production, train
people, import the brass, the copper, the materials…. and not that many antenna
crews are certified to work more than 500 feet above the ground. Those guys
have scattered.”

Cavell’s firm was a consultant to Sprint for the 2 GHz BAS transition.

“We went through that with the 2 Ghz manufacturers,”
he said. “There was no shortage, but it took time for the manufacturers to ramp
up, so a two-year project turned into a four-year project.”

Veterans of the DTV transition agree that three years for a repack is
unrealistic, much less 18 months.

“The economists at the FCC that think this type of transition can be done
in three years without completely redefining the industry itself are just
wishing for a miracle to happen,” said one who wished to remain anonymous. “If
you think about it… the DTV transition started in the 1980s, and in 1993, we
were just putting up prototype systems to test it. In 1997, we went through the
process… to figure out how to get all the stations on the air. Then, from 1998,
through 2009, we figured out how to keep them on their air and switch
channels.”

This was done by allowing TV stations to operate on two channels, so service
continued even as new transmitters and antennas were installed. A fraction of
the 900 TV stations that shut down analog signals on June 12, 2009, “flash cut”
to digital transmission on the same frequency. Those stations that don’t end up
on or very near the same frequency will need a new antenna, and none will have
a second channel for the upcoming repack, so service disruptions are likely.

“How essential was television coverage in Boston?” Cavell said, referring to
the reliance on local broadcast news for information about the pursuit of the marathon
bombing suspects. “So if you have most of the stations in town taking antennas
down and something big happens, you’ve got a problem. And there’s weather…
there’s a lot of things that can stand in the way of this happening quickly.”

The number of broadcasters that will be moved to new frequencies remains
unknown, because the auction is designed so stations can participate
anonymously. The estimate of participating stations now stands at around 200
out of some 1,735 full-power licensees. The FCC’s goal of reclaiming TV Chs.
31-51 would require 672 full-power TV stations either to be moved or shut down,
according to a study by the National Association of Broadcasters. A total of
174 stations were relocated in 2009.

Some sources blamed the freeze for killing Dielectric outright, but others
cited mitigating circumstances. The staff count has been reduced by nearly two-thirds
since 2000, when the operation employed 157 people, according to The
Portland Press Herald. In a statement issued by Dielectric about the
closure, 57 were left.

Dielectric’s dependence on the broadcast TV market also left it vulnerable. A majority
of TV stations operated on a staggered 10- to 20-year replacement cycle for
transmission antennas and peripherals. The 2009 DTV transition threw that into
disarray.

“In 1998, the top 10 markets went, and then the market took a dip, and then
between 2000 and 2005, it went through the roof,” prior to the initial 2006
deadline the transition vet said. “Then it declined and picked up again before
2009. There was a pretty steep decline after that.”

Dielectric laid off 31 employees in December 2009, and another 46 in August
2011, according to the Lakes
Region Weekly.

The company, located bout 22 miles north of Portland, was founded more than 60
years ago by Dr. Charles Brown to manufacture transmission lines for military
radar systems.

“Through normal course of business, SPX regularly conducts strategic
assessments of its global operations,” the closure statement said. “After
careful consideration, SPX has decided to discontinue the broadcast television
and radio and wireless antenna operations of its Dielectric Communications
business unit worldwide, due to extremely difficult global economic conditions
in the broadcast marketplace, and SPX’s ongoing efforts to further focus its
future growth strategy on its Flow Technology business. SPX is confident that this action is in the
best interest of the company’s future growth and success.

“SPX has made all impacted Dielectric employees in the U.S. aware of this
decision--57 in Raymond, Maine. SPX is providing outplacement services to
impacted Dielectric personnel, and employees in the U.S. are being encouraged
to apply for open positions at other SPX-owned businesses, including
Radiodetection Ltd…. which has a presence in Raymond. SPX filed a [Worker Adjustment
and Retraining Notification] on April 19.”

~ Deborah D. McAdams

Also see…
April 15, 2013, “FCC
Readies Way to Repacking With a Freeze on TV Changes”
Just before the National Association of Broadcasters Show got underway the FCC
Media Bureau issued a news release announcing limitations on the filing and
processing of full-power and Class A TV station modification applications,
effective immediately.

February 5, 2013, “FCC
Reveals Crucial Piece of TV Channel Repacking Method”
The FCC quietly revealed what amounts to its methodology for repacking TV
channels in the post-incentive auction spectrum band. The agency released a new
version OET-69 software that it intends to use for the repacking, and is
seeking input on its efficacy.

In addition to the Dielectric closure announcement being made just after the FCC TV "freeze", does anyone else find the fact it was made just after NAB 2013 to be more than just a coincidence? Empty (or thin) order books will do that as well.
Bill Magliocco, Detroit MI

Boy, that really sucks. As a former station chief who used to work with them about 13 years ago, I really feel bad for all you guy's still in TV. I loved the broadcasting industry back then. All this new spectrum reclaiming, HDTV, has scattered a lot of good friends and engineers. And after this reclaim who know how long it will be till the next, or possibly even the demise of all over the air TV surrendering to IP based services. I miss the days of high power klystrons and they will probably be no longer soon as well.

The FAA’s current rules and proposed ban on flight over people, requirement of visual line of sight and restriction on nighttime flying, effectively prohibit broadcasters from using UAS for newsgathering. ~ WMUR-TV General Manager Jeff Bartlett